In 1915, the forestry students at the University of Montana threw the very first Foresters’ Ball.

The ball was the foresters’ response to the Lumberjack Dance held a year earlier by the ranger students. The forestry students and ranger students had a long history of rivalry, so it made sense that the foresters wanted to outdo the Lumberjack Dance.

“A year later the foresters decided to do it better,” said Leslie Neu, publicity officer for the Foresters Ball. “They took a gym, and they filled the entire place with trees.”

They hung trees from the rafters, propped them up in stands and lined them against the walls. Then they invited couples from all majors to dress in western wear and spend a night dancing at the ball.

This year marks the 97th Foresters’ Ball, held March 21 and 22 at the Adams Center on the University of Montana campus.

The Foresters’ Ball is the second longest running event at UM behind football.

The ball features two nights of dancing as well as a career fair and a community Forestry Day.

The event takes an entire year to plan, Neu said.

“They start planning a week after the ball ends,” she said.

The ball is led by a seven-member committee, but more than 100 students work to make the event a reality, and some 50 alumni return to pitch in.

Before the ball, forestry students and alumni spend almost a week turning the auxiliary gyms of the Adams Center into a turn-of-the-century logging town.

The decorations at the Foresters Ball aren’t what you might expect to see at a high school prom. The students and alumni use rough-cut timber, hammers, nails and chain saws to build a saloon, general store, jail, chapel, chow hall and museum.

“They try to make it look like a logging town or a western town,” said Beth Dodson, associate professor of Integrated Natural Resource and faculty adviser for the Foresters’ Ball. “They do the best they can to make it not feel like gym.”

The town takes four and a half days to build, and 24 hours to tear down after the dance is over on Saturday night.

“We have a saloon where you can get a Coke for a kiss,” Neu said.

There’s also a chapel where you can get married and divorced, and a jail where you can pay to have your friends locked up or bailed out.

A live band plays, this year it will be Shane Clouse and Stomping Ground, and a large dance floor allows attendees to dance along.

Last year, the Foresters’ Ball added two community events to its lineup —a career fair on Friday and a Community Forestry Day on Saturday.

Both events are held inside the gym after it’s been decorated. That gives an opportunity for those who may not want to attend the dance to still see the logging town.

“We found that it allowed folks no longer interested in going to the dance itself a chance to still enjoy the ball,” Dodson said.

The Careers in Natural Resource Management Fair, held in conjunction with the Forestry Scholarship Association, aims to give high school students and college students who haven’t yet chosen a major a glimpse at the wide range of jobs available with a College of Forestry and Conservation degree. Government and private entities are there representing everything from wildlife biology to recreation management to wild lands restoration.

The Community Forestry Day provides hands-on activities for school-age kids in an effort to get them excited about the outdoors.

At last year’s community day, kids had the chance to catch paper fish, control a mini logging unit and shake hands with Smokey Bear.

Those new events were added after the alcohol policy of the Foresters’ Ball came under scrutiny after the 95th event.

Since then, the Foresters’ Ball has made other changes such as closing the doors at 10 p.m., although the ball runs until midnight, and having UM Public Safety on hand to write citations if needed.

“All the changes that were made were proposed by the students to the administration,” Dodson said.

And those have worked out to be positive changes, she said.

The Foresters’ Ball nearly sold out on Saturday night last year and often sells out on both nights.

Ticket sales go toward student scholarships, which students have the chance to earn by helping with the construction of the Foresters’ Ball and deconstruction after the ball.

Tickets go on sale March 17 and are available at the University Center, the Adams Center and Sunrise Saloon, all in Missoula, and online at griztix.com.

The 97th annual Foresters’ Ball

When: March 21 and 22

Where: The Adams Center auxiliary gyms at the University of Montana campus

Tickets: $20 for single tickets and $35 for couples. Tickets go on sale March 17

The Community Forestry Day with interactive activities for school-age children is March 22 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The Careers in Natural Resource Management Fair gives high school and college students and community members a taste of careers available with a Forestry degree. The fair is March 21 from noon to 3 p.m.

Both events are held in the Adams Center Auxiliary Gyms at the University of Montana and are free to attend.